Banter Blitz 2020 Final, Day 2

Today's matches were mostly routs, but there was one glorious exception. All the first-round pairings involved seeded players facing off against qualifiers, and while the latter are all terrific players there's still a gap (with one exception; two [at least or especially in blitz], counting yesterday, when qualifier and 2013 World Blitz Champion Le Quang Liem upended Teimour Radjabov) between them and the creme de la creme of the world's elite.

There were five matches today: Levon Aronian vs. Gawain Jones, Anish Giri vs. Peter Svidler, Magnus Carlsen vs. S.L. Narayanan, Alexander Grischuk vs. Rauf Mamedov, and Fabiano Caruana vs. Matthias Bluebaum. Excepting the Giri-Svidler match - the one case where the qualifier (Svidler) is himself a member of the world elite, and indeed, the player whose overall career is still the more impressive one - the other four matches were blowouts, with the losing side collectively achieving only three wins. Carlsen won 5.5-.5 (obviously going undefeated), Aronian won 5.5-2.5 (Jones won one game), Grischuk won 5.5-1.5 (also undefeated), and Caruana dropped a couple of games to Bluebaum on the way to a 5.5-2.5 victory (he started off 3-0, and was never really threatened).

Giri-Svidler, by contrast, was a dream match. The first seven games were decisive, with White winning the first six before Svidler broke the string in game seven. After a couple of draws, Svidler only needed a draw in game 10 to clinch the match, but lost. Two further draws ensued, and then Giri won the Armageddon game with White to win the match 7-6. (Giri's wins in games 1, 3, and 13 are here.)

Tomorrow the last of the first-round matches takes place between Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Grigoriy Oparin, and then the quarter-finals will look like this:

• Carlsen - Giri
• Aronian - Grischuk
• Caruana - Le Quang Liem
• So - MVL/Oparin

Website here.

Svidler Wins the Pepe Cuenca Invitational!

The exclam is for the surprise. It wasn't so surprising to see Peter Svidler make the final, (barely) defeating Santosh Vidit in the quarters and David Anton in the semis, but when he was paired with Jan-Krzysztof Duda in the final he seemed a clear underdog. Duda defeated Pentala Harikrishna handily in the quarters and squeaking past Vladislav Artemiev with several tournaments' worth of good fortune in the semis, he looked the favorite. After all, he finished second in the 2018 World Blitz Championship and had performed very well in one of those Chess.com blitz and bullet events, defeated Sergey Karjakin and Alexander Grischuk in back-to-back comeback matches.

In a classical match, it would be a coin toss. Duda is higher-rated, but not by a huge amount, and Svidler's peak rating exceeds Duda's. But because Duda seems (relatively speaking) even better as a blitz player, I think most chess fans expected him to win. This did not happen. Svidler got off to a serious early lead, getting to a 5.5-2.5 score in a match where six and a half points wins it. Duda won twice to make it close, but then Svidler won the game and the event, to the happiness of all of us who root for "old" guys and who have appreciated his commentary over the years.

More here.

Carlsen-Firouzja, and More

Last year it was Chess.com that had all the interesting online chess; this year it's Chess24. The Peter Svidler vs. Santosh Vidit match started a few minutes ago, and will be followed by the Pentala Harikrishna vs. Jan-Krzysztof Duda match. There's also an ongoing warm-up match for Anish Giri, against Jorden Van Foreest, helping him prep for the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, which starts on Saturday. And finally, the day and time has been set for the Banter Blitz finale between Carlsen and 16-year-old Alireza Firouzja: it will be on Wednesday (April 15) at 19:00 CEST/1 p.m. ET.

Grenke Chess Classic, Round 2: Carlsen Wins Again, Keymer Loses Again, and Svidler Breaks the Pattern

Today's round of the Grenke Chess Classic had much more blood than yesterday's. Magnus Carlsen led the way once again, and won his second straight game in the tournament and fifth overall, grinding out a victory over Francisco Vallejo Pons. He didn't have much to work with and the ending should have been drawn, objectively speaking. But as Carlsen has shown time and time again, "should" doesn't matter. The opponent has to prove the draw, and Vallejo didn't manage it. It's a great start for Carlsen, who achieved his 2-0 score with the black pieces. Tomorrow he'll finally get White, against Viswanathan Anand.

Speaking of Anand, he also won, defeating local prodigy Vincent Keymer. It was a smooth win with White for the former champ, and now the tournament will not only put Keymer's strength to the test, but his resilience as well.

The third winner on the day was Peter Svidler, who outplayed Arkadij Naiditsch with Black with what looked like surprising ease.

The other two games were drawn. Fabiano Caruana played an unusual anti-Sicilian against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave obtaining an interesting and perhaps slightly advantageous position in the queenless middlegame that quickly ensued. Caruana had what fun there was to be had before the game was eventually drawn. Meanwhile, Georg Meier had the more comfortable position on the white side of a short draw against Levon Aronian.

The games are here (without notes - it's Easter!), and these are the pairings for round 3, tomorrow:

• Aronian (1) - Vallejo Pons (.5)
• Svidler (1.5) - Meier (1)
• Vachier-Lagrave (1) - Naiditsch (.5)
• Keymer (0) - Caruana (1)
• Carlsen (2) - Anand (1.5)

Other Events: Aeroflot, Carlsen-Svidler, Ragger-Gelfand

The Aeroflot Open is ongoing, and after 7 rounds of 9 there are three leaders: Kaido Kulaots, Krishnan Sasikiran, and Haik Martirosyan; each has 5.5 points. Sasikiran started 5-0, taking a full point lead over the field, which he maintained with his draw in round 6. In round 7 he was crushed by Martirosyan, however, and he was also caught by Kulaots when the latter won a long, strange game against Wei Yi. That game was equal for a long time, but Wei Yi didn't want to give up a draw with White against a GM rated 200 points below him. He got his wish, though not the way he wanted. Sometimes, we have to accept reality when we're higher-rated; wishing for a win won't make it so, even if we wish really, really hard.

Remarkably, despite the relatively low leading score, only four players in the 101-player field are within half a point of the leaders. Here are the top pairings for round 8:

• Sasikiran (5.5) - Kulaots (5.5)
• Martirosyan (5.5) - Sarana (5)
• Tabatabaei (5) - Petrosian (5)
• Chigaev (5) - Wei Yi (4.5)

Magnus Carlsen and Peter Svidler played a blitz match on Chess24, to go to the first player to win five games. (At least that's how I understood it. I think Svidler took it that the winner would be the first player to reach five points. It turns out that the match result didn't disconfirm either theory.) Carlsen won convincingly, winning the first two games, drawing game three, and then winning three in a row to go 5-0 in wins and 5.5-0.5 in overall score. Both players live-streamed the match, and since Carlsen decided to drop an F-bomb in his I'll let the readers look them up on their own. (No, I'm not scandalized by it, but why use that language for a presentation that would otherwise be suitable and even inspiring for little kids?)

Finally, in a match that slipped under my radar until I caught wind of it in tonight's TWIC download, Austrian #1 Markus Ragger took on and crushed Boris Gelfand 4.5-1.5, winning games 1, 2, and 6 while drawing the rest. Gelfand's rating has taken a relatively big hit the last year and a half. (He was 2737 in September of 2017; after this match, he'll be down to 2660. It would have been 2655, but because Ragger had clinched match victory before the last game it wasn't rated.) Hopefully it is the pull of family life rather than a loss of ability that has taken its toll.

Carlsen vs. Svidler this Sunday

It's a gimmick, of course, on Chess24, celebrating their 5th anniversary and undoubtedly trying to bring in new viewers. Caveat emptor therefore, but it's a nice gimmick. More here.

Svidler on the Carlsen-Caruana Match; AlphaZero on Games 9-12

Here's what Peter Svidler had to say, and here is part 2 of Matthew Sadler's look with AlphaZero at the match, this time covering games 9-12.

Saturday Summary: Two Leaders Entering the Final Round of the IOM; Svidler Wins his Match

The pre-World Championship match festivities are winding down; the match between Peter Svidler and Sam Shankland is over, while there's just one round left to play at the Isle of Man. (But don't fret: there's the Shenzhen Masters starting November 4 with Ding Liren, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Yu Yangyi, Radoslaw Wojtaszek, and Nikita Vitiugov. There's no getting away from big chess anymore.)

Starting with what has finished: Svidler had some advantage with White, but not enough to cash in with a win (and probably not a lot of motivation to do so, either). Shankland drew, so Svidler won the match 3.5-2.5. This was pretty close to what one would expect from their ratings, with Svidler gaining two points from the match. The undercard maintained its "perfection", as Vladimir Fedoseev and Jorden Van Foreest drew all six of their games, and thus the match.

The Isle of Man International finishes tomorrow (Sunday), and the trends were reversed in today's penultimate round. The number of leaders had been increasing every round; now it has shrunk to two. The nine super-GMs had been performing well, with at least eight of the nine enjoying great chances to win the tournament. Now only one of the big nine is within half a point of the lead, and he's not one of the two leaders. Here's the run-down:

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Wang Hao were among the co-leaders, but after their (clean) draw they're half a point back. The next two games involving co-leaders were decisive, however. Arkadij Naiditsch defeated Hikaru Nakamura, first obtaining a positional advantage and then surviving the up-and-down tactical play that resulted from Nakamura's objectively dubious piece sac on move 26. Naiditsch was short of time though and it wasn't a bad practical chance. Nakamura managed to equalize, but then was worse before having one brief chance to be better with 35...Nf4. After 35...Re5? White was (again) winning, and didn't give Black any more opportunities.

Radoslaw Wojtaszek was the other winner, defeating Michael Adams thanks mostly to Adams' blunder on move 15. It cost him the exchange, and Wojtaszek duly converted his advantage.

Jeffery Xiong was the last co-leader, but in his long game with Vladimir Kramnik he was always playing defense. He was in trouble shortly after the first time control, but when Kramnik played 46.Bxf2 instead of 46.Kg1 Xiong was able to escape.

All the games featuring players half a point out of first finished in a draw except for Gawain Jones vs. Levon Aronian. Jones won pretty convincingly, as if he was the former world's #2 rather than a consistent mid-to-upper 2600-level player. Congrats to Jones!

Here are the leading pairings for the final round:

1. Naiditsch (6.5) - Wojtaszek (6.5)
2. Xiong (6) - Jones (6)
3. Grischuk (5.5) - Vachier-Lagrave (6)
4. Wang Hao (6) - Anand (5.5)

The next eight boards are all 5.5 vs. 5.5 pairings, but they are of course outside of the race for first.

Seven Lead at the Isle of Man; Status Quo Everywhere Else

1. There were lots of draws at the top in round 7 (of 9) at the 2018 Isle of Man International. The six leaders drew their three games, and only one of the nine players entering the round half a point out of first managed to win. Thus Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Arkadij Naiditsch, Hikaru Nakamura, Jeffery Xiong, Wang Hao and Radoslaw Wojtaszek remain tied for first, now with 5.5 points apiece, and thanks to Michael Adams' win over Abhijeet Gupta he too shares the lead.

Of the leaders, only Vachier-Lagrave had anything like serious winning chances, but the board was such a mess he preferred the safety of a speedy perpetual. On move 21, it was better to be greedy and recapture with the king, and even after that it wasn't necessary to repeat. That's easy to say with a computer running, but that it's easy doesn't make it false.

In the next score group, both Vladimir Kramnik (against Vladislav Artemiev) and Richard Rapport (against Gawain Jones) should have won, but they didn't. They're still very much in the hunt with two rounds to go; here are the pairings for round 8:

1. Vachier-Lagrave (5.5) - Wang Hao (5.5)
2. Naiditsch (5.5) - Nakamura (5.5)
3. Wojtaszek (5.5) - Adams (5.5)
4. Kramnik (5) - Xiong (5.5)
5. Jones (5) - Aronian (5)
6. Giri (5) - Rapport (5)
7. Anand (5) - Artemiev (5)
8. Parligras (5) - Grischuk (5)
9. Karjakin (5) - Sethuraman (5)
10. So (4.5) - Shirov (5)

For those who occasionally ask how the top players would do in open tournaments, and if their ratings are protected by their playing mostly amongst themselves, see for yourselves. Except for So, the nine super-GMs are all no more than half a point out of first, and even So, who is having a relatively poor event - the worst of the bunch - is only down 7 rating points for the event.

2. Game five of the Svidler-Shankland match was drawn. Shankland got nothing from his last white game, and will have to win the last game with Black to tie the match. Game five of the Fedoseev - J. Van Foreest was drawn, just like the first four.

3. TCEC Superfinal: 26 games are finished, and Stockfish leads 3-0 with 23 draws against Komodo. Only 74 games remain.

4. Chess.com Computer Chess Championship, Blitz edition. It has been a while since we updated this one. As suggested in the post's title, though, there's nothing new to report, except that more games have been played and we've all aged. Stockfish leads with 92.5/102, five points ahead of Houdini. Lc0 has played one more game, and has 79.5/103, while Komodo is battling with Ethereal and Fire for fourth, not far behind Lc0. All three engines have played 102 games, and Ethereal has 77.5 points while Fire and Komodo have 77. This is just stage 1, with the top 10 engines making it to stage 2 and then the top 4 from stage 2 playing in the third and final stage. So...it'll be a while before it's all over.

Six Lead the Isle of Man; Svidler Beat Shankland to Take the Lead

There were four leaders coming into round 6 of the Isle of Man International, and now there are six. Three were among yesterday's co-leaders, and three are new. The inherited leaders are Jeffery Xiong, Wang Hao, and Arkadij Naiditsch. Naiditsch took the day off, while Xiong made Wang Hao suffer for a long time before acquiescing in a draw.

The fourth pre-round co-leader, Abhijeet Gupta, had a tougher time, losing quickly to Hikaru Nakamura. Gupta played an interesting pawn sacrifice for play, but in the tactical flurry that followed he was outcalculated by Nakamura and resigned rather than surrendering the exchange. Nakamura thus joined the leaders, as did Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Radoslaw Wojtaszek. MVL sacrificed two pawns for tons of play, although his opponent (Rinat Jumabayev) was objectively okay it was the sort of position where the mistakes are waiting to be made. He "found" one of them with 33.f4, and four moves later it was over. Not all "equal" positions are equal for mere mortals. Wojtaszek's win came mostly due to a blunder. He had some advantage against Rasmus Svane, but nothing near decisive until 21...Nfd7?? 22.Qxf7+! Qxf7 23.Nxf7, when Black can't take on f4 due to 24.Nd6+. From there Wojtaszek had an easy time converting his advantage.

Mircea Parligras nearly made it a septet, as he was much better-to-winning against Sergey Karjakin for a long time. It came down to a rook ending, and when Parligras missed the subtle 81.Rd4, preferring instead 81.Rd3, Karjakin managed to sneak out with a draw.

Here are the top pairings for round 7:

1. Vachier-Lagrave (5) - Naiditsch (5)
2. Nakamura (5) - Xiong (5)
3. Wang Hao (5) - Wojtaszek (5)
4. Artemiev (4.5) - Kramnik (4.5)
5. Sethuraman (4.5) - Anand (4.5)
6. Rapport (4.5) - Jones (4.5)
7. Adams (4.5) - Gupta (4.5)
8. Antipov (4.5) - Giri (4)

Also in the 4-point score group are Levon Aronian, Wesley So, and Alexander Grischuk.

In the match between Peter Svidler and Sam Shankland, Svidler took his first lead of the match with a crushing win in game 4; (up to?) two games remain. Shankland was doing fine with Black, but 18...h4 was a bad idea. Technically, it wasn't a mistake; after 19.Bg5 he could have played 19...Be7!, threatening ...e5, and only after White's queen quits the d-file would he take on g3. But instead he played the natural 19...hxg3, winning a pawn but coming under a crushing attack after 20.Bxf6 gxf6 21.Qh6. Svidler finished in style, but for the most part it was pretty straightforward (though attractive). My guess is that Shankland missed either 19.Bg5, 19...Be7, or Svidler's terrific 25.Kh1, with the idea to meet 25...gxh2 with 26.Rg1+! with a speedy mate. (The undercard match between Vladimir Fedoseev and Jorden Van Foreest had another draw: 4 for 4.)

Selected games (mostly annotated) from the two events, here.